“I know. And right now, I’m between jobs or careers or whatever I’m going to do. If I’m ever going to try my hand at something like this, now is the time.”
“You could try your hand at something smaller,” Audrey reminded her. “Something more bite-size. That chateau is one hell of a big bite. But it could launch you on a new and very lucrative career.” She liked Olivia and wanted to help her.
“That’s what makes it exciting,” Olivia said, and thanked her for the referral.
“I’ll pass the word on to Moscow. He has a designer now. He’ll be very pleased.”
“I am too,” Olivia said simply. She was still glowing when she went to the kitchen to find Joachim. He knew the moment he saw her. Her eyes were alight and looked like emeralds, and she was smiling.
“I smell trouble coming,” he said, laughing. “In the form of a three-hundred-year-old chateau. Am I right?”
She nodded with an impish, mischievous look that made him laugh harder. “I think I can really make it into something beautiful.”
“You probably can,” he said. He had great faith in her, even after the little he’d seen. She had vision and talent, and energy, but he wondered if she had any idea how much work would be involved. She shocked him then with a question she hadn’t dared ask him so far.
“If they hire me to do the project, will you help me?” He stood very still when she asked him. He wanted to turn her down flat, but he didn’t. He just stood there, looking shocked.
He didn’t know what to say at first. There was the obvious answer, and the one she wanted to hear, that he would. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll help you until I get a real job as a butler and go back to England.”
She mulled it over and then nodded. “That’s fair enough. Then I’ll just have to finish it before you find a job. Or keep you locked in the dungeon. There must be one.”
“I didn’t see one,” he said, smiling. He still couldn’t believe she was going to do it. One woman, alone. She wasn’t a contracting company, or an architect, or a licensed designer. She was just going to do it and figure it out as she went along. “Well, we’ll have our work cut out for us now.” And he thought they were finished with her apartment.
“First, I have to get an agreement from him, and negotiate what he’ll pay me.”
“It should be a lot. Don’t settle for too little,” he advised her. “He can afford to pay you well, if he bought a place like that.”
“I hope he remembers that.” She smiled at him, satisfied that Joachim would at least be there for a while. Hopefully a long while.
The Russian owner called her as soon as he got the word. He had a deep, booming voice and a strong Russian accent, and told her that he was sure she was going to do a beautiful job for him. He said he felt it in his bones and in his veins. She promised him progress reports and ongoing photographs, and he repeated what Audrey had said in blunter terms.
“You make beautiful, I pay more.” He quoted an amount for a monthly payment, which staggered her. It illustrated to her how foolish she would have been to turn it down. She still looked dazed when she saw Joachim in the kitchen.
“It’s official. I’m a high-end prostitute now. What he offered to pay me is obscene.” She quoted Joachim a number that she would pay him for as long as he worked on the project. She couldn’t expect him to help her with it for what she was paying him for the short-term job to set up her apartment.
“Will that make me a prostitute too?” She didn’t answer, and he laughed. “So be it. Why not? It’s more lucrative than being a butler. We’re in it now,” he said, and chuckled on his way home. Life had certainly been interesting since he met Olivia White. He was a decorator’s assistant now.